Marrero says his job at Camp Garcia from 1970 to 1972 often entailed helping Navy officers test hazardous airborne chemicals on animals like goats. Many of the canisters he handled, he says, were labeled "112" for Project 112, a top-secret Cold War U.S. military program conducted between 1962 and 1973 that involved experiments with chemical and biological weapons. Project 112's records were finally declassified at the start of this decade, but the Pentagon as yet does not acknowledge a link between the chemical tests and the spate of illnesses suffered since then by servicemen like Marrero, who is still fighting to get his veteran's medical benefits. "I'd always ask how safe that stuff was and those Navy chemical guys always told me, 'It's safe, you'll be O.K., kid,' " Marrero says. "But I wasn't, and I'm not."